20.8.11

Luck

Today I was thinking about luck and randomly asked twitter what they thought about luck. Is there such a thing? Can you be lucky? Or unlucky? Do you ‘make your own luck’? is luck not a thing at all…

Looking at some timelines on twitter was what made me ponder in the first place, some people seemed to have a timeline full of woe and calamity, illness, lost jobs, broken appliances, sick children, lack of sleep, lack of money, depression, - Wow! I thought, they are unlucky people!

But others had timelines of joy and happiness, kids passing exams, kids saying funny things, bargains bought at boot sales, fivers found in pockets, great jobs, lovely husbands, new pregnancies and I thought – Wow! They are lucky people!

But looking further into some timelines it became obvious that actually, the people were the same. The number of illnesses, missed buses, found money, unexpected phone calls, visiting in laws and the like were often very similar but, and this is the crucial bit, the way they were looked at and spoken about varied a huge amount!

I follow people who have cancer that consider they are 'lucky' people, and wealthy people that think they are unlucky'.

While I’m sure I could do a whole PhD on twitter and optimists and pessimists and luck, a very cursory glance leads me to believe what many of my followers also tweeted in answer to the ‘Can you be lucky?’, that while things happen, the way you approach them can determine if you ‘feel’ lucky or unlucky as a result.